There are a series of personal strategic planning techniques you can practice to increase productivity and improve the rate at which you start getting things done. These are methods used by the highest-paid and most productive people in every field.

Key To Personal Strategic Planning

Use the principle of ‘‘concentration of power.’’ This requires that you concentrate your talents and abilities where they will yield the highest payoff to you at the moment. It is the key to personal productivity and is essential to success in personal strategic planning.

In corporate strategy sessions, managers focus on the goal of increasing ‘‘return on equity’’ (ROE). The purpose of business strategy is to allocate the company’s resources in such a way that they yield the highest possible financial return on the equity invested.

Here is another kind of ROE for you. In personal strategic planning, your goal is to get the highest ‘‘return on energy.’’ Your job is to allocate your talents and abilities in such a way that you achieve the highest possible return on the mental, emotional, and physical energies that you invest in your work.

Your highest return on energy is almost always that task where you combine your unique talents and abilities with the specific needs of the situation. You then focus and concentrate singlemindedly on that one task, which is the key to getting things done efficiently.

Whenever you have a new job to do, ask yourself: ‘‘Does this job give me my highest return on energy invested?’’ Discipline yourself to increase productivity and apply your skills where you can achieve the greatest results for both yourself and your company.

Focus On Opportunities

Increase productivity by concentrating your strengths, and the strengths of others, on your major opportunities. Focus on the opportunities of tomorrow, rather than the problems of yesterday. Concentrate your best talents and energies, and those of your best people, on those few areas where major breakthroughs are possible.

Focus On Key Result Areas

Identify the key results you are expected to get by answering the question: ‘‘Why am I on the payroll?’’ Once you’ve identified your key result areas, work in them exclusively. This is an important component to personal strategic planning and can help you to increase productivity tenfold.

Each person has five to seven key result areas where they can make an important contribution to their job and to the organization. It is only when you concentrate your efforts on your key result areas that you will start getting things done and achieve the most significant results possible for you in the shortest period of time.

Increase Productivity By Setting Deadlines

To improve your personal strategic planning, set deadlines for important goals and stick to them. Deadlines force you to work harder and more effectively as the deadline approaches. A goal or an assignment without a deadline is usually an exercise in futility. It has no motivational force behind it. It creates no compulsion for closure. It is something that you easily procrastinate on and put off until the last minute.

In order for you to increase productivity and start getting things done efficiently, set deadlines for everything you do. Promise other people that you will finish certain jobs by the deadline.

When you promise others, you motivate yourself to fulfill the promise. When you place your honor and your ego on the line by making promises to others, you find yourself internally driven and motivated to start getting things done exactly as you said, on schedule.

Getting Things Done With A Steady Pace

Don’t hurry or rush around frantically to get the job done. Maintain an easy pace and work steadily. Remember the fable of ‘‘The Tortoise and the Hare’’? Highly productive people work with a certain rhythm that allows them to flow through enormous amounts of work without becoming stressed or anxious.

A hallmark behavior of successful salespeople is that they do one thing at a time. They do the most important thing in front of them, and they stay with it until it is complete. They set priorities and use excellent personal strategic planning techniques.

Thinking About Results

Result orientation, the ability to start getting things done, is a key quality of all peak performers who have excellent strategic planning skills. You can develop the ability to concentrate single-mindedly through practice and repetition, over and over, until it becomes an ingrained habit of success. Once you develop the skill of getting things done, the skill will serve you for the rest of your life.